German village offers blueprint for rural green energy

The sign indicating the zone of German village of Feldheim is pictured on the side of a road March 6, 2013.

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The sign indicating the zone of German village of Feldheim is pictured on the side of a road March 6, 2013.

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Solar panels are pictured in the German village of Feldheim February 21, 2013.

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Wind turbines are pictured at the German village of Feldheim March 6, 2013.

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Wind turbines are pictured at the German village of Feldheim March 6, 2013.

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Wind turbines and a biogas plant are pictured at the German village of Feldheim March 6, 2013.

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Wind turbines are pictured at the German village of Feldheim March 6, 2013.

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Wind turbines are pictured in this multiple exposure at the German village of Feldheim February 21, 2013.

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Wind turbines are pictured at the German village of Feldheim February 21, 2013.

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The connection to the biogas heating system is pictured inside a village house in Feldheim March 6, 2013.

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Joachim Gebauer, a former teacher who now guides groups of visitors, poses next to a sign reading 'Germany, land of ideas' at the German village of Feldheim February 21, 2013.

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FELDHEIM, Germany (Reuters) - Nations as diverse as North Korea and the United States have sent delegations to visit a tiny village in former East Germany to see how it has transformed the way it uses energy.

A 60-minute drive south of Berlin and home to about 125 people, Feldheim is Germany's first and only energy self-sufficient village and attracts both international energy experts and politicians.

"We're seen as pioneers and the world wants to know whether they can duplicate our success," said Joachim Gebauer, a 55-year-old former teacher who guides visitors through the remote hamlet.

"No coal or gas is burned here, it's all clean."

Instead, Feldheim is powered by a mix of 43 wind turbines, a woodchip-fired heating plant and a biogas plant that uses cattle and pig slurry as well as maize silage.

Local energy costs of 16.6 euro cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) are just a little more than half of the 27-30 cents Germans pay on average, according to the New Energies Forum Feldheim, an information center.

Feldheim's rates are not far off those in Poland, which generates nearly all its electricity from carbon-intensive coal-fired plants.

Households there paid on average 14 cents per kWh in 2012, while those in the Czech Republic, which relies on nuclear for about a third of its power generation, paid about 15 cents per kWh.

The Feldheim project is just one small part of sweeping changes in energy across Germany aimed at moving away from coal and nuclear power.

The country of more than 80 million aims to derive 80 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050.

It has bolstered wind and solar energy generation and following Japan's Fukushima disaster in 2011 Germany announced that it will phase out nuclear power by 2022.

A handful of other communities around the world are also aiming for energy independence.

Abu Dhabi's Masdar City project, designed to be the world's first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city, is among the most prominent.

Yet its opening set for 2019 has been delayed until 2025, and officials have conceded it may need some help from external energy sources.

Charles Whall, a fund manager at asset manager Investec, said Germany's own 2050 renewables target was technically possible but could also prove difficult due to high costs and the need for back-up generation capacity to offset swings in renewable energy supply.